After facing resistance from politicians and protestors, Amazon is reportedly rethinking its planned New York City campus. The eCommerce retailer, which had intended to bring 25,000 jobs to the city, hasn’t acquired office space for the effort as of now, The Washington Post reported.
While Virginia officials provided the company with an incentive package, the state of New York is not projected to provide final approval for another year. But officials in Tennessee have given the go-ahead for $15.2 million for improvements in conjunction with Amazon’s plan to come to Nashville with 5,000 positions.
One unnamed source cited by the paper said, “The question is whether it’s worth it if the politicians in New York don’t want the project, especially with how people in Virginia and Nashville have been so welcoming.” And, even though New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) and New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo (D) lauded the project, the paper reported some are “appalled” with the idea of providing the company with subsidies. U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, among other officials, “have rallied against the project.”
The news comes as Amazon reportedly posted two job openings mentioning its planned HQ2 New York City office. Those listings, which were said to have been posted in January, were for Intelligent Cloud Control (ICC) engineering positions. As it stands, there were reportedly plans in the works to hire 50 people for that team. According to the job descriptions, “our expansion in HQ2 will allow ICC to meet its ever-increasing staffing needs, and provide the engineering leadership necessary across all of the other Amazon teams we work with that will also establish a base in HQ2 in the future.”
Last November, the eCommerce retailer said that it chose New York City along with Northern Virginia as the locations for its second and third headquarters. Each location is forecast to have up to 25,000 employees, who would come on board over the course of a decade to 12 years.